Caught, Cursed and Charmed
by just-another-fallen-one
Summary: There's a man on the hunt for power, willing to eliminate any who stand in his way. Adrien Agreste, heir to one of the great magical families, has joined the ranks of the missing magic users. At the same time, an aspiring bright young witch, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, has happened upon a rather unique spell book. But with this threat, will that just bring about a worse danger...


MINI UPDATE: sorry I just had to do some minor editing

This is a Ladynoir/Chatbug fanfiction for the Magic AU prompt from tumblr user pisces-royalty:  
post/131838666407/ladybug-witchau-with-chat-familiar

Ladybug Witch!AU with Chat Familiar  
• Adrien Agreste was the most powerful and the best wizard in the kingdom  
• He was cursed by a black mage by the name of Papillon and turned into a black cat  
• Marinette is an aspiring witch who finds inspiration in Adrien  
• Marinette is a fangirl of Adrien and has gotten it into her head that she will find the missing wizard and he will love her in return  
• Marinette does some illegal magic trying to summon Adrien and instead gets a black cat  
• Not knowing that the black cat is Adrien, she - disappointed - takes him as her familiar instead  
• Adrien as a cat falls in love with his witch  
• Whenever Marinette is in some kind of magical trouble, she can will magic into her familiar, who turns into a half-man, half-cat. The transformation lasts for about two to three hours and during that time, Chat-man Adrien is flirting it up with Marinette in hopes she'll fall in love with him and break the curse. Unfortunately, he can't tell her his true identity

I intend to stay true to the prompt as much as possible, but I will add in my own details such as magic being non-compatible with cats... even werecats... Spoiler alert.  
Just kidding. About the spoiler, it's not really a spoiler. Not kidding about the anti-magic werecats, though. No, those are real.

* * *

Is it truly possible to possess such a thing as a "charmed life"? The wizard known as Adrien Agreste wondered this as he stared out onto the golden landscape of his city, brilliant against the curtain of the night.

If a charmed life meant a life of luxury where anything money could buy or power could acquire became available at the wave of a capricious hand, then he had once had it.

If it meant being the target of more willing "friends" and paramours than one could ever need or if it meant being born so innately skilled that his talent threatened to fill up an ocean, then Adrien had also had it.

If a charmed life meant a life under a spell, no, a curse, from some other witch or wizard who managed to take him off guard, to overcome Adrien's own magical power, and to succeed in essentially stripping him of his existence as he knew it, then well... Adrien most certainly, currently, had that.

To be entirely honest, he hadn't a clue as to who had cursed him or why. He could speculate but the pool of possible suspects was far too wide. There was an unfortunately large number of people who would be more than willing to use him to get to his father, people who harboured grudges against Agreste Sr. or simply wanted him out of the high stakes, elite-run, playing ground. And then there were people whose personal motives were directed at Adrien himself. They were mostly envious of the brat who had been born into fortune, who had never worried over pennies or felt hunger or known pain. Though, occasionally, there also were a few of his "upper-class" peers who deluded themselves with the crazy idea that they had been slighted by the "Too Good For Anyone Else Adrien Agreste" simply because he had not actively individually sought out each of their affection and admiration. His friend Nino had once delighted in telling him, through escaped laughter, about the entire gossip circles that thrived off these theories. Much to Nino's hilarity, apparently, the young master Agreste had also been gifted with the titles of: Thinks He's God's Gift and I Bet His Daddy Bought His Power Level Evals. Personally, Adrien considered these all prime examples of the dangers of inbreeding: primarily, the astounding drop in IQ.

As for dealing with his attacker, he did have something of an idea of how he might go about it. The first group, Adrien thought, wouldn't be a problem once he was back to his real self. He would simply hand them over to his father: a harsh sentencing but probably the best option, and certainly the easiest. Though, undoubtedly after some serious time with the ruthless Agreste Sr., the culprit would be desperately wishing that Adrien had been the one dealing with them. If they were after Adrien himself... Then it would be a little more complicated. Most of that second group weren't actually "bad" per se... They were just a bit confused when it came to directing their animosity and, most importantly, their energy. If they were envious then they were mislead, Adrien's life might have seemed charmed on paper but in reality, it was... lonely. Empty. Full of broken promises, and insincere intentions. Though it wasn't all just an act. A part of him _was_ that obedient son of a famous CEO, another part _was_ the respectful boy that mothers cooed over, and he _was_ still that hardworking, diligent student who was praised by his instructors. But he was other things as well: he was fun things, not just that serious, adult-like personality that the media portrayed him as. He was just as selfish, as inexperienced and as immature as other teenagers. And he was tired of trying to pretend he wasn't: it made even the things he enjoyed, like fencing and magic, grow to be an exhausting exercise if he was made to do them just to play out this "role" that his father and the rest of the world seemed to require of him.

Now undeniably distanced from that lifestyle, he took small solace in the fact that no one would ever try to impose schedules on him in this form. Surprisingly enough, there were some advantage to no longer being a human, he mused. No more evaluations or work, or any expectations at all. No more time spent alone, haunting the halls in that vacant mansion that he had called home...

He'd actually been avoiding his home, assuming that whoever had cast the spell would be too intelligent to not have at least some form of surveillance watching on the giant property; and with his magic limited by his current state and his body this size, he knew he wouldn't be much of a challenge in a fight. He decided he would probably be safer blending into with the city's everyday life until his opponent made a move. After all, _who would ever notice one more stray black cat in the bustling streets of Paris_?

* * *

"Ma-ri-nette! How many times do I have to tell you to stop using spells in books that you buy from those sketchy road vendors?" Alya asked her friend, sighing in frustration.

"I didn't get anything this time, promise." Marinette broke eye contact as she tried to discretely shove the offending object further into her bag, blushing when Alya, so ever observant, caught on to what she was doing.

"Ugh, you did! You're a terrible liar." Her voice softened, "You know that I'm just worried, right? The last one you tried might have only turned your hair blue-"

"Dark blue, nearly its original colour."

"- _blue_ , which has still not washed out, by the way, but the next one might do something far more serious. It's really dangerous: these spells are unauthorized for a reason. They've yet be properly identified by the expert authorities, so nobody knows if they'll do what they say they will or will instead bring about the Armageddon. Not to mention the legal consequences that you would have to deal with if you're ever caught working unauthorized magic, or worse, unknowingly working unauthorized dark magic."

"Don't worry, every source that I could get my hands on agrees that the order of Tikki is a solely light magic practice. Their belief is in harmony and peace. Bad things are far too disastrous to their revered idea of a soul's 'luck'."

"The order of what? Tikki? Is this another one of those neo-deity cults? Because I know they preach goodness and whatever, but half of them are completely lacking any common sense or concept of reality."

"Oh no. Actually, the order predates Ancient Egypt. It disappeared a long time ago." She looked down at the book in her hands. "It was quite lucky, really, for me to come across this."

Alya cast a last suspicious glance before getting up from the café table. "Well if you're sure... I have to be home soon, the parents are going out on the town and I picked the short straw for babysitting, but can you please at least give it a bit more time, sleep on it, before you start casting who knows what kind of magic?"

Marinette shifted in her seat and looked down.

"Marinette?"

"I just... It's been two years. And he's completely fallen off the grid. Something's happened to him, I know it. I need to find him as soon as I can. I need to try."

Alya gently squeezed her friends hand. "Hey, you know the rich and powerful are unpredictable at best. He's probably ecstatic to have finally escaped that controlling father of his and is off gallivanting on some tropical island right now, with not a single care in the world."

"No. I know everyone thinks that, but it's _Adrien_ ; he wouldn't do that. You know him, _we_ know him. He would have at least said something to Nino: they were best friends. He was beyond worried when Adrien disappeared. And M. Agreste won't say anything but I don't think he knows where Adrien is either. If I could just cast a decent finding spell that works for once..."

At the mention of Nino, Alya's face fell. "Okay, maybe you're right and something has happened to him. But trust me, your finding spells work perfectly fine, better than any others that I've seen. So if they aren't working on Adrien, then he probably just doesn't want to be found. Someone who doesn't want to be found by anyone, not his friends nor his parents, doesn't sound like someone in any immediate peril to me. I'm sure he'll be fine waiting a few more days. Tell me you won't touch that magic book in the meantime?"

"Okay, yes. No doing any strange, unknown magic for the next couple days."

"Alright," Alya straightened, smiling. "I really have to go now. I'll see you tomorrow. Ciao."

Marinette smiled in return, "See you then. Ciao."

As Alya walked away, she looked back at the book and felt hope rising once again.

This time, it might just work.

This time.

* * *

Adrien wasn't _exactly_ gallivanting through the streets of Paris. But he wasn't in any rush or much of a direction besides: towards a source of food. He still hadn't warmed to the idea of eating mice, or birds, or other small uncooked creatures, which left him with the task of acquiring people food ; in particular, cheese display arrayed across a market stall's table. Ah yes, beautiful, tasty human food. Which is fine because I am a human, he reminded himself, not actually a cat. To be honest, he hadn't thought he'd be stuck as a feline for this long. Two whole years had passed and he still hadn't found much information about his curse or the one cast it. All there was were faint whispers through alleyways of a man with a thirst for power. A man on a path to eliminate the powerful, those who might pose a threat, and to fill the vacuum left behind. Butterfly man, they called him, le Papillon. A rumour on the wind. A hurricane maker. A mystery behind a mask.

Adrien just knew that after two years as cat, he was ready to watch M. Butterfly struggle. Hopefully, by his own claws.

With his focus back on the dairy products, he was considering one of the smaller rounds of camembert, near the corner of the table, not too far from the window sill upon which he was perched, when he felt an odd rippling sensation through his fur. That was, it was almost like a finding spell, which shouldn't be possible. As far as he knew, cats couldn't be Found. Because, cats couldn't be touched by magic, period. It had to do with something about the animal's brainwaves and incompatibility with order: no force of nature could control cats and magic was no exception. Of course, despite this universally acknowledged truth, someone had still managed to turn him into a cat in the first place. So clearly, something bizarre was going on in Paris recently. He hoped against reason that whoever was casting this spell wasn't the one who was after him. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, there were two different magic who could use magic on cats?

But this was definitely a finding spell. He could tell now.

Except...

There was now the tugging feeling that came with an exertion of great power and ù magic field that was strong enough to affect others with its 'gravity'. But that meant that the finding spell had somehow evolved into _an insanely powerful summoning cast_? What even... Now, that _really_ shouldn't be happening.

And yet, he thought as he was pulled the fabric of time and space, it was.

* * *

Slowly coming back into consciousness, Marinette felt incredibly dizzy. And light headed. And like a load of bricks was crushing her. The little light that filtered through her eyelids burned as though she was looking directly at the sun. Her throat felt dry.

With a little effort, she vaguely recalled snippets of what had happened before she had been knocked out cold.

A memory of opening the book once she gotten home, thinking that she'd only said she wouldn't do magic not that she wouldn't read about it. And then reading about it became pulling apart and playing with the magical theories. Which became crafting possible spell ideas, and, of course, vocalizing their pronunciation aloud since some of the foreign letter combinations looked tricky and she should at least practice first. But then that turned into collecting the material and eventually, she ended up doing a test run of the full ritual. Except that test had turned out to be less of a "test run" and more of a "real run".

And when the magic reacted, sizzling along her fingers, Adrien's location was still unknown. But it was working, she could feel it. So, frustrated, she forcefully flung her magic at the spell and the text from the book _leapt from the page to meet it halfway and exploded_...

Her mind struggled with that concept. Text does not generally fly off a page. Text is supposed in books, that it's job just as the book's job is to hold it. She had heard of high-level magicians whose greatest spells wrote themselves in the air as they were cast, but that seemed far more organized and controlled than what had just happened. And definitely out of her league. Which is most likely why this spell didn't work: not enough power.

She should have probably listened to Alya. She still didn't know where Adrien was, and that explosion... It could have been bad.

Just, thank god her parents weren't home and her neighbours were still making the most of their summer vacation. Having to explain the noise would be way too hard.

Because right now she just felt utterly wasted. And as if a steamroller had rolled over her.

As if someone was sitting on her chest. Something that had just started purring.

She opened her eyes. Green irises stared back.

"Miau?"

She laughed, an action made difficult with her current visitor weighing her down."Hello, my little chat noir, how on earth did you get in here? Aren't you a handsome thing? You must not scare easily if you didn't run away when..." she trailed off. "Oh, I'm sorry. I was trying to find someone who's been missing for some time now because I've been really worried about him. And I... I miss him. I really miss him. We weren't really close or anything before he disappeared, I'm don't even know if he knows my name, but he still became... someone who is very important to me."

The cat blinked at her.

"Oh, what am I doing, rambling like an idiot to a cat, of all things. I should have just told _him_ when I had the chance to do it. But I was too much of a coward and I ended up being just another fan girl in the masses... Kitty, the world is a unfortunate place sometimes. It doesn't stop or turn back for anything." She stared back up at the ceiling and sighed. "I don't think I have enough energy to try standing up just yet, I'm too drained. I guess it's too bad that you're just a cat, however cute you might be, because I could really use a hand."

As soon as she the last word left her mouth, the weight on her chest changed and then lifted as something placed itself beside her head, a voice murmured, "If my Lady wishes it..."

She looked back down and stared.

Leaning over her, braced by one gloved hand nearly touching her hair, was a blond boy dressed entirely in black. His green eyes seemed to sparkle with amusement as he gave her a cocky smile, "...I am at your service."

How did an armful of cat become an armful of _that._

* * *

Hi,

This is the author again: Lady J,

The first chapter of this fanfiction was originally posted on my own tumblr: evidently-evil  
post/131873374002/caught-cursed-and-charmed-magicau-ladynoir

I have no beta so pity me. So, let me know if something seems off, chances are my brain hiccuped (likewise, please message me about any spelling/grammar errors). I am Canadian though, and will not be using American spelling, which means "color" and "favorite" will be "colour" and "favourite". You have been warned.

Thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts in the comments. I'd love to hear about anything you'd like to see happen.

That's all for now,

Lady J, out.


End file.
